Years of drafts.
One night of readers.
You are launching a book, or launching one for an author you represent, in a bookshop between the shelves, a library meeting room or the upstairs of a bar. There is a reading from the first chapter, a Q&A where an old friend asks the question you were dreading, a signing line where each inscription takes longer than it should, a cake shaped like the cover, and a toast from the editor who believed in it. The author sees almost none of it, because they are holding a pen. One QR code gathers the photos everyone else took, and a guestbook from the readers who came.
One-time. No account needed to buy — about a minute.
The moments guests actually photograph at book launches
Why book launches work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
A guestbook written by readers
An author gets plenty of reviews and very few notes from the people who actually came. Set the guestbook question to something like 'Which line stayed with you?' and readers write it while they queue for a signature. The answers are kept with the photos, and they are what the author rereads during the hard weeks of the next book.
Voice notes from the friends who were there at the start
The friends who read the terrible first draft deserve more than a line in the acknowledgements, and they usually have something to say. A voice message of up to 60 seconds, recorded on their phone at the party, keeps the toast they were too shy to give in front of the room, in their own voice.
Handed to the author when it is all collected
When a publicist or the publisher hosts the launch, the gallery belongs with the author. Name them as the recipient and the finished gallery is emailed to them on a private link on the date you pick, so they can browse and download every photo, message and inscription shot without an account.
No app. No account. One scan.
Guests point their camera at a QR code and are uploading in seconds. Nobody installs anything, nobody creates a login, and the grandparents can do it as easily as the teenagers.
A guestbook with your own question
Replace the generic prompt with one that fits the day. Written messages are collected alongside the photos and kept with the gallery.
Voice messages
Guests record up to 60 seconds of audio right from the upload page: a blessing, a toast, a story. It is saved next to the photos in the same gallery.
Deliver the finished gallery to someone else
Name a recipient and the completed gallery is emailed to them on a private link on the date you choose. They browse and download without an account.
Full-resolution downloads
Download any photo, or the whole event as one archive, at original quality. What guests uploaded is what you keep — no compression, no watermark on paid events.
Private by default, never indexed
The gallery is only reachable by the link or code you share. Guest pages are blocked from search engines and named AI crawlers, and you can close the gallery whenever you choose.
How it works
Set up in a minute. Collect for the whole event.
Create the event with the book's title and the venue, and write a guestbook question about the book itself.
Put the QR code on the chairs for the reading and on a card by the signing table, next to the pen.
Readers upload through the reading, the Q&A and the signing line, and leave a written note or a voice message.
Send the gallery to the author as recipient, and download the best photos for the publisher's posts and the author's newsletter.
Try uploading as a guest.
Scan this with your phone the way a guest at your event would. Choose a sample photo and upload it from your browser, then open the demo gallery to see it land. In this public demo, photos appear at once and videos wait for a person to approve them; at your own event, you decide.
- Scan the code with your phone camera — it opens straight in the browser.
- Upload a sample photo. Look for the upload confirmation so you know it reached the host.
Use a sample you are comfortable sharing with Picsui. Please keep personal or sensitive photos out of the demo.
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This is the same kind of code your guests scan at your event.
Getting the most from book launches
Place the code where people wait, which at a book launch means the signing line. The reading has everyone seated and listening, and the Q&A has them thinking, but the signing line is twenty minutes of standing still with a book under one arm and a phone in the other hand. A small card on a stand at the start of the line, and another at the signing table itself, gets the photos of the inscriptions and the moment the author looks up. Ask the bookseller to mention it when they introduce the author.
Take the photos the author will actually want before the room fills. The stack of books by the till, the cake before anyone cuts it and the empty chairs with the author's name on the board are what end up on the acknowledgements page of the next book, and they only exist for the first half hour. Ask one friend to be in charge of the detail shots and upload them early. Later, the slideshow on a laptop by the drinks table shows the reading back to people who arrived late from work.
If you are a publicist or an editor hosting for an author, think about who keeps the gallery. Set the author as recipient so the finished gallery goes to them once the launch is over, and agree in advance which photos the publisher can use on social. Book launches are quiet events for some authors, especially first-timers, so ask before running the slideshow on a big screen. A gallery that arrives in the author's inbox the following week, with their readers' notes in it, is often the kindest gift of the launch.
Common questions about book launches
How do we get photos of the signing from readers?
Put the QR code at the start of the signing line and at the table. Readers scan with their phone camera, the upload page opens in the browser with no app and no account, and they add the photo of their inscription while they still have the book open. Ask the bookseller or host to mention it once when the signing begins. The photos land in one gallery, in the order they were taken, instead of scattered across a hundred camera rolls.
The publicist is hosting. Can the author get the gallery?
Yes. Whoever creates the event manages it, and you can name the author as the recipient. On the date you choose, the finished gallery is emailed to them on a private link, and they can browse and download every photo, voice message and guestbook entry without making an account. That keeps the launch photos with the person whose night it was, while the publicist still has access to pick images for the publisher's channels.
Who can see the photos from the launch?
Only people with the link or the code. The gallery is private by default and guest pages are blocked from search engines and named AI crawlers, so a reader who was photographed in the signing line will not find themselves in search results. If you want to see everything before it is shared, turn on host review and each upload waits in your queue. The publisher only posts what you pick and download from the gallery.
We are launching in three cities. Do we need three events?
That depends on how you want the photos kept. If each launch should have its own gallery and its own guestbook, create one event per city. If you would rather have one link the author can share for the whole launch week, create one event and add each city as a sub-event on the schedule, with its own date, address and RSVP. Readers in every city scan the same code and add to one shared gallery, so the author has the whole tour in one place to look back through later.
What does it cost for one launch?
An Event Pass is $29, paid once, with no subscription. It covers unlimited uploads, the guestbook and voice messages, full-resolution downloads, recipient delivery and 365 days of hosting, long enough to use the photos through the whole publicity cycle. A small bookshop launch can also run on the Free Preview, where the first 60 uploads are visible and the gallery locks 7 days after the event.
Every photo from book launches, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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